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Ever since the new Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 debuted at the Chicago Auto Show, sticking a big 550 hp middle finger at its Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 rival, you knew Ford was going to do something to widen the gap between the two cars. Sure, both cars had the same horsepower figure and the GT500 weighs a bit less than the Camaro ZL1 so any direct comparison between the two should be close. But close doesn’t seem to be good enough for Ford’s Special Vehicle Team engineers, and recently our intrepid spy photographers caught two GT500s touring the Nürburgring sporting some pretty interesting hardware.

The first Mustang Shelby GT500 spotted was the black and blue example you can see in the gallery below. At first glance, it looks like a normal GT500 just getting some lap time around the ‘ring. But a closer examination of the grille reveals what looks to be additional cooling tubes—possibly for a larger liquid-cooled intercooler. Also of note on the blue-striped beauty are the fog lights. The passenger side fog light cutout is plugged with either black plastic or tape, while the driver’s side reveals a big gaping hole. Our photographer managed to get a close up on the driver side and it revealed what looks to be more cooling hardware, possibly an enlarged transmission oil cooler.

The second Shelby GT500 captured on film was the Race Red example you can see in our gallery. The red Mustang provided more contrast so we could get a better look at what kind of cooling hardware it was packing. As you can see from the gallery below, this GT500 also has extra cooling in the grille, as well as what looks to be a cooling system mounted where the driver’s side fog light should be. There are a couple minor differences between this red GT500 and the striped one. The red GT500’s lower grille is cut out, possibly to provide even more cooling to whatever this GT500 is packing under its hood. The second thing that this GT500 is sporting that the other one wasn’t is winglets on its front bumpers. The winglets look like they provide additional down force on the front of the car, as well as to help handling and aerodynamics.

So what does this all mean? Well, it’s possible that Ford is trying to combat the heat soak that the GT500 is prone to when hot lapping with additional cooling or even a new supercharger. That being said though, it’s long been rumored that Ford was going to drop an “Ecoboost” twin-turbo V-8 into the Shelby GT500. With Ford throwing turbocharged engines in everything from compact cars to full-size pickups, it’s a possibility that one could appear under the hood of the GT500. However, a prominent front-mount air-to-air intercooler that would be indicative of a turbo doesn’t seem to be present. So it appears the next GT500 will remain supercharged, in some form.

That’s not to say a turbocharged powerplant will never appear. Not only would an Ecoboost mill make sense in a GT500, it would also be more fuel efficient than the supercharged 5.4-liter V-8 that’s currently under the hood of the GT500. And what about those front winglets? Well there are two possibilities. They could either be one offs for the engineers to use while lapping the Nürburgring, or they could very well appear when the GT500 is next refreshed. Only time will tell.